Nambi Narayanan

Nambi Narayanan (born 12 December 1941) is an Indian aerospace scientist who worked for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). As a senior official at the ISRO, he was briefly in charge of the cryogenics division. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award, in March 2019.

In 1994, he was arrested on charges of espionage, which were found to be baseless by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in April 1996. As a result, the Supreme Court of India dismissed all charges against him and prohibited the Government of Kerala from continuing its investigation. In 2018, a Supreme Court bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, awarded Narayanan compensation of ₹50 lakh (equivalent to ₹67 lakh or US$79,000 in 2023). Additionally, the Government of Kerala then awarded him further compensation of roughly ₹1.3 crore (equivalent to ₹1.7 crore or US$210,000 in 2023) in 2019. The film Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, based on his life, starring and directed by R. Madhavan, was released in July 2022.